Multidisciplinary Multifidelity Optimisation of a Flexible Wing Aerofoil for Small UAV

The preliminary Multidisciplinary Design and Optimisation (MDO) of a flexible wing aerofoil apropos a small Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) is performed using a multifidelity model-based strategy. Both the passively adaptive structure and the shape of the flexible wing aerofoil are optimised for best aerodynamic performance under aero-structural constraints, within a coupled aeroelastic formulation. A typical flight mission for surveillance purposes is considered and includes the potential occurrence of wind gusts. A metamodel for the high-fidelity objective function and each of the constraints is built, based on a tuned low-fidelity one, in order to improve the efficiency of the optimisation process. Both metamodels are based on solutions of the aeroelastic equations for a flexible aerofoil but employ different levels of complexity and computational cost for modelling aerodynamics and structural dynamics within a modal approach. The high-fidelity model employs nonlinear Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) coupled with a full set of prescribed structural modes, whereas the low-fidelity one employs linear thin aerofoil theory coupled with a reduced set of the latter. The low-fidelity responses are then corrected according to few high-fidelity responses, as prescribed by an appropriate Design of Experiment (DOE), by means of a suitable tuning technique. A standard Genetic Algorithm (GA) is hence utilised to find the global optimum, showing that a flexible aerofoil is characterised by higher aerodynamic efficiency than its rigid counterpart.